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The Rape Of Mindoir
"I wish I could say I did something great, something out of a story or a legend. I didn't. I hid in a sewer, laying in trash and filthy water, drinking out of tossed water bottles and listening to the screams and cries of the captured and the tortured. It was my Sixteenth birthday, and God gave me a present I will ''never ''forget." - Jane Catherine Shepard to Alliance Investigators after her rescue from New Edmonton, Mindoir. On April 11, 2170 CE (Terran Calendar), the colonial town of New Edmonton, Mindoir was raided by a force of twenty vessels and hundreds of ground personnel in the largest known slave raid at that point in time. 'New Eddie', as it was known by the locals, was almost completely fleeced of its populous, either fettered or tortured to death. To date, there is only one known survivor. Origin Prior to the event known throughout humanity as 'the Rape of Mindoir', tensions between the Systems Alliance and the Batarian Hegemony had been steadily fraying due to several issues that stemmed from their own governments as well as that of the Citadel Chamber of Governance. Before the Relay 314 Incident and the discovery of humanity, the Batarian Hegemony had been the so-called 'favored son' of the Citadel, first amongst the races that did not have one of its kind in the Council of Law. Having been a part of the Citadel for six hundred years, and had quickly found favor with its large military, robust economy, and trade partnerships outside of Council Space that went largely ignored. Because of this, the Batarians colonized their portion of space with fevor, adding to their Hegemony while prospering. Then came humanity. The burgeoning Systems Alliance existed within a portion of space that was technically a part of Batarian Space, though they had no colonies or Relays to take them to those sections of space. What had angered the Batarians was that humanity had more colonies than they in portions of space that had been theirs for centuries, if only on a map. When humanity signed the Treaty of Farixen, it afford them the protection of their holdings that had already existed before the signing, as well as guarantees of defense through the Citadel in case of attack. While the population of humanity was smaller than that of the Batarians, they had more planets and space under their control, effectively elevating them to near the same level as the Hegemony in many standings in the Citadel. Under the literature of the Treaty of Farixen, any colonization efforts had to be approved by both the Chamber of Governance and the Council of Law. A planet in question, Camala, had been settled by Batarians and elements of their government without approval. Batarian efforts to have the planet become officially their own had met with silent refusal, and when the Systems Alliance applied for a new colony, they had gotten Camala in quick fashion. The Batarian settlers were told to evict the planet with whatever they could carry with them by the Council as the Systems Alliance, unknowing of this detail, took over colonization of the planet. The Glorious One, Thirty-Seventh In His Name, Dreaded Refuge Of The People Of Khar'Shan, Emperor of the Hegemony, took this as a personal affront, and promised terrible retribution. Sweet Sixteen Jane Catherine Shepard was born to notoriety as the first child born on Mindoir, and grew up on the agrarian world under the Whole Foods Consortium to produce crops and livestock to feed humanities' ever-growing borders and numbers. The daughter of farmers, she grew up in a prosaic life that was a mixture of schooling, farm chores, and wholesome upbringing. On April 11, 2170, her sixteenth birthday, she enticed her father to take her to the nearby city of New Edmonton to watch a movie, get sundaes, and enjoy her sweet sixteen in a more spectacular fashion. What nobody knew was that day would end in tears and blood. The 'unofficial' fleet of ships said to have hit Mindoir was never officially recognized by the Batarian Hegemony, claiming that a paramilitary organization had secured past-generation vessels of Batarian make on the open market outside of Council Space, and updated them as best as possible to 'look' like current models. The personnel involved were also described by the Hegemony's Minister of Truth as Batarian ex-patriates living outside of their borders and law. Despite the cries of justice from humanity after the event, there was no evidence signifying that the Hegemony had anything to do with the Rape of Mindoir, no real evidence to link that the raid was ordered by anyone in their government, executive, legislative, or military. This did not sit well for humanity or the two thousand people taken. Or its lone survivor. The Daughter Of Mindoir Details had always been sketchy about the Rape of Mindoir itself; the sole survivor ended up being a highly traumatized sixteen year old young woman who could barely string together a sentence without bursting into tears. What little has been confirmed was that the first move of the raid was the destruction of the system's FTL Comms Buoy to deny any call for help. The next move was to detonate an air-burst EMP charge a kilometer above the town of New Edmonton to shut off all power sources so the rest of the colony couldn't come to the aid of the citizens of New Eddie. Then there was the attack itself. According to the testimony of New Edmonton's sole surviving occupant, Jane Catherine Shepard, Batarians had come in aircraft she called 'Coursers', battle shuttles meant to deploy ground troops, armed with non-lethal instruments such as harpoons and incapacitating gas weaponry. Groups had been established around the town to prevent survivors and escapees from fleeing as they drove the populous inward, clearing the town block by block, street by street, building by building, room by room. The center of town was turned into a concentration camp as Batarians guarded the prisoners and tortured them for the locations of any possible persons hiding or other locations they might have missed. The raid took three days, between absconding almost every soul and searching as many possible locations for anyone that might be hiding. It is believed that the sixteen year old was able to avoid being captured and fettered due to the fact that she wasn't from New Edmonton, and no one could give up information on a person that they didn't know about. Jane watched as her father was captured during the initial attack, the man pushing his daughter away from a harpoon meant for her. Alliance Investigators suspect that Patrick Shepard most have lied about his being in New Edmonton other than the real reason he was there to help keep his daughter safe, even while tortured. Jane Shepard was rescued approximately seven days after the initial attack, having buried approximately two dozen people that had been tortured to death by Pillars-Priests and Batarian Overseers for locations of others and to keep the rest of the populous in line. She survived by eating scraps and leftovers left behind by the missing inhabitants, unable to leave New Eddie due to the fact that the Batarian forces had disabled the vehicles in the town to prevent any escapes during their occupation of the colonial town. The Aftermath The Systems Alliance Armed Forces studied the method of the attack religiously, intent to never be caught unprepared. The Alliance Bureau of Colonization and the Bureau of Colonial Affairs installed new policies to better protect its colonies while instituting new patrol routes and drills amongst the Systems Alliance Naval vessels for such incidences. Unfortunately, due to the lack of concrete evidence liking the Raping of Mindoir to the Batarian Hegemony, the Systems Alliance was not allowed to exact revenge upon the Batarian government, officially denied by the Council of Law. The incident almost had the Systems Alliance break away from the Citadel completely when the Turian Chamberlain on the Chamber of Governance suggested that the slave raid was 'a human problem' and implied that humanity couldn't defend its own borders. The next evening, the Turian Chamberlain's youngest hatchling, a son, was kidnapped from his next in the Presidium with no evidence or claims suggesting who might have absconded with the child. The young male was found three days later, alive but confused, in the Scows of the Enders of Kothoyi Wards with a token around his neck; engraved upon it was the image of a three-headed dog on one side, and Greek letters on the other announcing the name; 'Kerberos', the Greek name for the guardian of hell, Cerberus. Despite the token, there were no other leads or evidence to follow and despite the monstrosity of the crime in the Turian mindset, most of the Chamberlains of the Chamber of Governance agreed that the Turian had gone too far suggesting that a slave raid in which human children were involved didn't warrant a more involved response. Jane Catherine Shepard joined the Systems Alliance Navy on April 11, 2171, exactly one Terran year after the attack, on her Seventeenth birthday, with permission from her now-estranged mother. Notes * Canon offers little of the assault on Mindoir. It could be the name of a town, moon, planet, or effort. Unlike canon, Jane Catherine Shepard did not lose her whole family, just her father, who was captured. * Canon does not offer a location for Mindoir, so I selected the Exodus Cluster and created another system within it along Asgard and Utopia. The Exodus Cluster was founded and colonized before the FCW, and as Shepard was born before hand, would make her a 'true' colonist. * The 'Daughter of Mindoir' is something I've used in several stories to signify the Colonist survivor. It just has that ring to it, and matches well with the continuation of a ruthless career; the Butcher of Torfan. Category:Event Category:The Peacemaker Series Category:Battle Category:Peacemaker Series